Over 1,500 education leaders including promoters, trustees, principals and senior teachers of India’s top-ranked day, boarding and international schools congregated in Delhi on September 28-29 to celebrate the country’s most admired primary-secondary schools – and for the first time — in nine neighbouring countries – Summiya Yasmeen 

The EducationWorld India School Rankings (EWISR) 2019-20 Awards festival held on September 28-29 at the Leela Ambience Hotel, Delhi NCR, was a runaway success. Over 1,500 K-12 education leaders including promoters, trustees, principals and senior teachers of India’s top-ranked day, boarding and international schools sub-divided into ten categories, congregated to celebrate and felicitate the most admired primary-secondary schools countrywide — and for the first time — in nine neighbouring countries. The annual EWISR is the world’s largest and most in-depth schools rating and rankings survey based on field interviews with 12,213 knowledgeable stakeholders in primary-secondary education across the country. Similarly the two-day 11th EW India School Rankings Awards 2019-20 event was the country’s largest festival of primary-secondary education leaders during which over 750 schools were conferred awards as per their standing in the EWISR 2019-20 league tables published last month (September 2019).

Among the galaxy of principals and education leaders who were conferred honours and encomiums on the occasion were Matthew Raggett, The Doon School, Dehradun; Dr. Madhav Deo Saraswat, Scindia School, Gwalior; Dr. Vijay Dutta, Modern School, Barakhamba Road; Neera Singh, Rajmata Krishna Kumari Girls School, Jodhpur; Dr. Jagpreet Singh, Punjab Public School, Nabha; Kanchan Khandke, Mayo Girls School, Ajmer; Lt. Gen. (Retd) Arjun Ray and Sarojini Rao of the Indus International School, Bangalore and Dr. Bijaya Sahoo, Sai International School, Bhubaneswar. The event was over-subscribed with schools from over 200 cities countrywide convening to receive trophies and certificates with sizeable representation from small town India including tier III and IV cities such as Zirakpur, Mau, Fatehabad, Itanagar, Faizabad, Kanchipuram and Bijnor, among others.

Moreover on the occasion, Paul Machado, principal of the Campion School, Mumbai; Dr. Gunmeet Bindra, principal of Welham Boys, Dehradun; and Sanjeev Bolia, managing director of the Kolkata-based Afairs Exhibitions Pvt. Ltd, were conferred the EW Extraordinary Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2019 and Nissar Ahmed, chairman of Presidency Group of Institutions, Bangalore and Dr. Saroj Suman Gulati, founder of the Blue Bells Group of Schools, Gurgaon were presented the EW Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2019 with specially written citations.

Furthermore this year, the annual EWISR ventured abroad with introduction of the EducationWorld Global School Rankings Awards 2019-20 . In the bumper EW September issue, we published the inaugural EW Global School Rankings league tables. Juries of education leaders and experts with deep knowledge of our neighbouring countries ranked the Top 10 primary-secondary schools in the kingdoms of the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain (CBSE and/or CISCE, Delhi affiliated schools), Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

Also on the packed agenda of the two-day event was felicitation of 150 low-profile/newly promoted, progressive schools under the EW Grand Jury Awards 2019-20. They were ranked under 12 parameters of school excellence by a specially constituted grand jury of eminent educationists and conferred awards for campus architecture and design, design thinking leadership, career counseling leadership and introducing digital technologies etc.

Our valued partners for the two-day event were corporate leaders in education, viz, Financepeer, Mumbai; Ebix SmartClass Educational Services Pvt. Ltd, Delhi; Infiniti Modules Pvt. Ltd, Goa; School Shack, Surat; Mindler Education Pvt. Ltd, Delhi; Equitativa Group, Mumbai; Redwood Edutours, Nagpur; Edunext Technologies, Noida; Life Educare Consultants, Bangalore; BenQ India, Gurgaon and Afairs Exhibitions & Media Pvt. Ltd, Kolkata.